Bass Instincts
You don’t see enough griffins in MLP/FIM fan art. At least finished colored pieces, so I decided to do something about it. This is piece was inspired by a quick sketch I did a couple weeks ago of Golden Bill. Now since I started accepted commissions again I have had a couple of people inquire about have their pegasus pony done in color by me, but I have never done finished bird wings using my colored pencil technique. Therefore I thought it would be prudent to try a piece with some feathers in it before I committed to any client work. It also finally let me get Golden Bill’s belly correctly rendered since the feline part of her body is more like a cougar than a African lioness. In all the sketches I’ve done I keep forgetting to put the light belly fur in.

What I learned is that I have a long ways to go but I kind of expected that. You rarely hit a home run out of the park the first time you swing a baseball bat. Still it taught me that they are far more complex than bat/dragon wings. Oh, well that is how you learn.

Also this is the first time I’ve done a double bass and since I have plans for some Octavia pieces I thought it might be wise to get some practice with classical string instruments. The one I found out studying them is the fact that there is almost no straight lines or flat planes on those instruments. Instead you are confronted the myriad of subtle, and not so subtle, curves and arcs.

Now this piece will probably become the first piece we offer for direct sale from our company website link if it does not sell there then I’ll probably enter it into the Further Confusion 2015 art show. As usual it is done with colored pencil, marker, technical pen and gouache on vellum finish Bristol board.